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by Hal Bromm

Eric Anfinson is an artist with a lot on his mind. At

39, this young painter has a sense of purpose and mission that is striking. His perspec-tive on travelling through life — and surviving its surprises and shocks — is touching. His most recent exhibition of oil paintings, now on view at The Studios of Key West through April 25, provides an oppor-tunity to become enmeshed within his special world, and to share his philosophy through a series of resolute portraits.

Anfinson’s exhibition, titled “the blue thread/one life, beautiful life,” features portraits of friends — all women — within the ground floor Armory space at the Studios complex. The exhibition playfully transforms the main hall Armory space into a quick

stage-set “salon” of sorts, an homage to the gatherings of the “précieuses,” the French intellectual and literary circles that formed around women in the first half of the 17th century. On view at the opening were blue sashes, a luxurious bed and other devices inspired by literary salons where the intellectual women, called “blue-stockings” (les bas-bleus) gathered. Featured was music by Karen Heins, who had been commissioned to create a CD to compliment Anfinson’s new images. The special installation of lush plants, elegant swags of blue fabric and within it a tableaux of an artist’s atelier, seemed to delight visitors at the opening reception. If you missed the opening, there is a time-lapse video (it compresses the entire evening into about 10 minutes) now on view at the Armory. The

Eric Anfinson at The Studios of Key West

“Pilgrim.” “A Few Days From Now,” self-portrait. “Perception.”

place; for himself, for the subjects, and — he hopes — for viewers.

This show, unlikely in a commercial gallery, is utterly at home at The Studios. This nonprofit space not only provides artists with room for open experimentation, it frees them from the need to sustain gallery rents or payrolls. Without retail sales constraints, such spaces foster adventurous creative thinking for artists increasingly subjected to market forces. The Key West artistic community — and its visitors — benefit significantly. Eric Holowacz, director of The Studios, reflects that “Our campus and facilities exist to foster creative ideas, provoke cultural dialogue and present bold artistic statements like Eric Anfinson’s blue thread.” Many feel the future of Key West’s historic legacy as a lively experimental outpost for the arts depends on significant new support for

artists and their ideas, as well as incubator workshops and studio spaces. Let’s hope The Studios fine leadership will inspire greater community recognition of this need, as well as awareness that experimental art is vital to our city’s well-being.

For more information about cultural events and opportunities at The Studios of Key West, please visit the Website, or call 296-0458. ❐

Also worth noting:Opening today, April 11, is

“undercurrent overview” at The Key West Museum of Art & History at the Custom House featuring Susan Bailey, Leo Gullick, Lauren McAloon, Jon McIntosh, Giovanni Novara, Susan Sugar, Lola Tang and Tom Virgin. Call 295-6616 for information. On view Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 11, 12 and 13, is art of John Lennon at 1200 Duval. Call 294-4603 for details.

special salon installation will again be presented for the closing reception on Thursday, April 17, from 6 to 9 p.m., during The Studios of Key West’s monthly Walk on White evening event.

For the last several years, Anfinson, a former Lemonade Stand Art Studio artist who has worked extensively with Letty Nowak, has often chosen women as his subject. For this exhibition, the paintings feature subjects the artist knows well. All are friends, a few are former girlfriends. Anfinson explains that the feminine psyche offers a healing aspect to which he is drawn. “My greatest depth of healing is in discovering the

feminine within myself. It’s what we all do,” he says. “We try to heal ourselves … There’s nothing more gracious than someone offering themselves (to be painted),” he continues. “Both of you have the opportunity to be healed — through being vulnerable. It takes courage, for both the artist and the subject, to say, ‘OK, here it is.…’” The women depicted seem to echo a sense of infinite wisdom while casting a decidedly firm gaze back at the viewer. The artist’s brush has caught both their vulnerability and their determination in the face of his and their lives.

While perhaps invisible to the eye, for Anfinson there is

an ethereal thread that ties our life experiences together. “The blue thread is the path,” says Anfinson, “while one life/beautiful life is the intention of healing.” That ethereal blue thread takes the form of a three-dimensional mixed-media installation, “that aims to enhance the paintings and create a deeper sense of intimacy and the essence of a giant womb.”

Since for the artist the “blue line” also represents the birth canal, each blue portrait gives birth to a counterpart that is fleshed out in full color. Playing on the blue theme, most of the 23 pictures on view present a twin perspective — included are

10 blue portraits and almost as many equivalent portraits in full-color. The blue image portraits, which the painter refers to as “in the vapors,” are hung at the entry to the show through the Armory’s rear doors.

Following the blue line of cloth artfully draped between potted ferns, viewers are led to the full color portraits, passing by a single gentleman’s visage en route. That image, reminiscent of Matisse in mid-life, is a self-portrait of the artist as an older man, hung within a small vignette that features a dressing gown on a hook nearby as well as a blank canvas. According to Anfinson,

the blank canvas in the tableau represents life’s tabula rasa of possibilities — good or bad — that lay ahead in both life and one’s art.

The artist believes that although everything in life happens for a reason, we don’t usually comprehend the logic behind each occurrence or its eventual role in our life. When life presents a challenge, a setback or even a broken heart, one usually can’t see past it. Reflecting on his own travails, Anfinson says “While we are within it, we lose perspective, but time and reflection allow us to see past events in a different light, to see what good might have come from something

negative.” For Anfinson, his “older” self-

portrait reflects the visage of patient wisdom gained over the years. “Reflection and contemplation allow a sense of resolution, replacing regret with thankfulness.”

The artist, who often weaves images from dreams and myths into his canvases, allows his subconscious to guide him. “Because a story exists, I paint. Because it matters, my paintbrush is constantly touching the emotional fiber that connects us.” Life’s chaos, difficulties and emotions reveal themselves to him through his painting. It is in this process, he says, that the healing takes

“Blue Jill.”

“Blue Laurel.”